Day 49

After a few days of not being able to see the girls, I made it back in to the hospital today, donned with an exciting face mask.  Shannon is still not feeling well enough to come back in, but we were able to video call for a bit.

These lovely ladies are doing well.  As of the last couple of days, Avery now weighs in at a whopping 3 pounds, while Wren is still at about 2.5.  Wren smiled at me today.  At least, I'm going to call it a smile, because it sure looked like one.  She opened her eyes really wide for a while as I talked to her, looked over at me, and a smile crept out.  Some people say babies just smile when they're passing gas, but hey, if it's only between me and a fart, I'll take that happy face any day.

The twins also had their first eye exam done today.  Yet another thing premies are at risk for is ROP, for Retinopathy of Prematurity, meaning underdeveloped eyes.  This would basically be a condition where the blood vessels that supply the retina on the back of the eye are growing abnormally, and can eventually cause a wide range of eye problems from nearsightedness to lazy/wandering eyes.  In the worst case scenario, the abnormal vessel growth can lead to scar tissue developing at the back of the eye which could cause severe vision problems which may not be correctible with glasses.  Unfortunately, this isn't an easy or comfortable exam, either, since they have to force open the eyelids to be able to shine lights in them.

Anyway, it turns out that (what do you know), our babies are identical, so their eyes looked exactly the same.  The ophthalmologist said that both had a small amount of ROP, but were not determined to be severe enough to need any treatment. They will start to receive weekly exams to follow their progress.  This is another thing that can go either way - it may look better or worse next time they perform the exam.  For now, it sounds like he was impressed that there eyes were in as good condition as they were considering the respiratory and other distress they have both been through.